Your author mentions everything but the most important..... personal
responsibility for ones own well-being.
Since when did that become unfashionable ??
On Feb 1, 4:29 pm, dick thompson <rhomp2...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> Problem is once again where do you draw the line. This guy doesn't seem
> to want to. He is a doctor so he wants the guarantee that he will get
> paid and therefore he wants the HCR. He doesn't really give a damn
> about WHO has to pay the bill or why they have to pay the bill; he
> just wants paid. He realizes that the auto insurance gambit has been
> proven to be a false base so he fluffs that off and instead the health
> care insurance is different and should be on a different track. The
> auto insurance guy would beg to differ on that but so what.
>
> Meantime what about all those people who did not have to change their
> insurance (Obama promise) but now find that they will because they have
> to buy the basic policy which has everything in it. I am 70 but I would
> have to buy pre-natal care as part of my policy and all sorts of other
> things I don't want and don't need. Those who had healthcare savings
> accounts for catastrophic coverage will now find they can't have them
> any more. And now explain all those waivers (last count was over 750
> waivers out there, almost all to FOZ - Friends of Zero - like labor
> unions and other organizations who fought for the HCR and now want to be
> exempt from it). Add in that the congress also exempted themselves from
> the HCR as well. They get to keep their insurance unlike a lot of the
> people.
>
> Talk again about all the savings from this boondoggle. Now even the CBO
> no longer attempts to pedal that POS. They admit that the HCR will
> cause a huge rise in the deficit. Originally they had to come up with
> an estimate based on what the Dems in congress fed them and the Dems in
> congress left a lot of the big ticket items out and also had 10 years of
> taxes to pay for 6 years of expenditures - Enron accounting at its
> finest - one would think that Krugman, late of Enron, had something to
> do with that one and Bawney Fwank also since he can't see anything wrong
> about any government program.
>
> Then we come to the basic point. If you can say that HCR should stand
> apart and not be treated like any other transaction and therefore we
> should be forced to buy it, where do you draw the line as to what we
> have to buy and what we cannot be forced to buy. A case can be made at
> any given time that this item or that item is a necessity and should not
> be treated like other transactions and therefore we should be forced to
> buy it for our own good. Problem is who defines our own good. Last I
> heard we should be able to define our own good for ourselves. That is
> what our freedom is all about. I realize that the Dems don't believe in
> that and feel they should be the ones to define our own collective good
> but we are not a collective and we do have Free Will. We also have
> freedom of choice as that is the basis of our nationhood in the first
> place. This screwy doctor thinks he should have his freedom of choice
> and nobody else, unless Zero tells us we can have a waiver to get out of
> it and you have to be best buds with him (moneywise) to get that.
>
> This guy is an idiot and should just be disregarded. He does not have
> our best interests in mind when he comes up with his hairbrained
> thoughts on this subject. He surely does not speak for me.
>
> On 02/01/2011 04:58 PM, Tommy News wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > Health Care Law: What the US Constitution Meant to Say
>
> > -by David Katz, MD
>
> > Here is a passage lifted ver batim from The New York Times coverage of
> > the decision by a federal judge in Virginia that the Obama
> > Administration's health care reform legislation was in parts
> > unconstitutional:
>
> > "Thus far, judges appointed by Republican presidents have ruled
> > consistently against the Obama administration, while Democratic
> > appointees have found for it."
>
> > Richmond, we have a problem. The contents of the U.S. Constitution
> > shouldn't change when seen through a red lens, or blue. That the
> > meaning of the Constitution varies diametrically when seen from the
> > left or seen from the right is, in a word, wrong. It makes reading the
> > Constitution sound like reading tea leaves.
>
> > In the case of the controversial provision -- the requirement that
> > everyone buy health insurance or be penalized -- what DID the
> > Constitution mean to say?
>
> > Almost certainly: not a thing! When our Constitution was drafted,
> > health insurance wasn't on anybody's radar (neither, for that matter,
> > was radar). Medicine was primitive; hospitals were all but
> > nonexistent; long-term care institutions did not exist. There was no
> > dialysis, no organ transplantation, no open heart surgery, no
> > angioplasty. Acute threat to life or limb generally meant...loss of
> > life or limb. And when the medical services of the day were required
> > and of any use, the barter system took care of the costs more often
> > than not.
>
> > One need not be a Constitutional scholar (and I hasten to note: I am
> > not!) to know that the Constitution was silent on health care
> > insurance for the same reason it was silent on inter-stellar travel.
> > Such concerns were not part of the world in which the document was
> > drafted.
>
> > So the Constitution is silent on health insurance per se. But it is
> > not silent, of course, on government powers and their limits, and
> > that's where the controversial interpretations pertaining to health
> > care reform originate.
>
> > The U.S. Constitution says the government can't force you to buy
> > anything. Or at least, it says something like that.
>
> > The states can force you to buy auto insurance if you drive a car.
> > But, they can't force you to drive -- or own -- a car. So, free will
> > prevails! The Constitution is OK with this.
>
> > The state can't force you to buy or rent an abode. But the authorities
> > can hassle you interminably if you attempt to rest your head in just
> > about any alternative place -- just ask a homeless person in any major
> > city. Let's call this one a bit gray.
>
> > The controversy now is: What about health care, and the insurance that
> > generally pays for it?
>
> > The decision in Virginia suggests that health insurance is like any
> > other commodity, and the federal government does not have the
> > authority to force us to buy it. Specifically, Judge Hudson stated
> > that the government lacks authority "... to compel an individual to
> > involuntarily enter the stream of commerce by purchasing a commodity
> > in the private market."
>
> > The crux of the matter, then, is involuntarily entering the stream of commerce.
>
> > Alrighty, then; what about involuntarily bleeding to death? What about
> > a case of involuntary HIV? What about involuntary meningitis, or heart
> > failure? Few people I know volunteer for medical calamities. Medical
> > calamities are, quite predictably, involuntary. And there's the rub.
>
> > On any given day, any of us can be involuntarily thrust into the
> > "stream" of health care commerce by an involuntary disaster. Then the
> > only question is: will we, or won't we, have a paddle?
>
> > When life and limb are imperiled, we intervene -- and worry about the
> > bill afterward. Human decency requires nothing less.
>
> > But afterward, there IS a bill -- and someone has to pay it. Leaving
> > out the details, that someone will be us. It will be paid through our
> > taxes, or paid in our health premiums. In other words, we, the
> > insured, ARE being forced to 'enter the stream of commerce'
> > involuntarily, to pay the bills of those who opted out. Bad enough to
> > be forced to buy something for yourself -- how about being forced to
> > buy something for the other guy, who opted out of the system and left
> > the bill to you and me?
>
> > That's the problem with thinking of health care -- and the insurance
> > to pay for it -- as if it were any other commodity. People can just
> > say no to any other commodity. They can't say 'no' to resuscitation
> > from cardiac arrest -- at least not until after they are a beneficiary
> > of it!
>
> > And worse than that- the only bills we pay on behalf of those who
> > choose not to play are the high-cost, post-calamity bills. We don't
> > pay for preventive care, so those opting out don't get it. They won't
> > get their cholesterol checked, but they will get CPR. They get, and we
> > pay for, the worst kind of care: post-catastrophe, high-cost,
> > questionable outcome, totally involuntary care.
>
> > These are facts, readily substantiated. So where do they leave us?
>
> > In doubt, perhaps, about what the Constitution meant to say. But maybe
> > the Constitution did not mean to say anything about health insurance,
> > because health insurance is not like any other 'commodity.' It flows
> > in a current quite apart from the prevailing 'stream of commerce.'
>
> > My personal opinion is that health care access should be in the
> > Constitution as a case apart. Namely, it should be codified in the
> > Bill of Rights as an amendment: everyone has a right to acute medical
> > care at a time of crisis. I have made that case before. How can we
> > rally around a right to bear arms, but not protect the arms that do
> > the bearing? How can we protect the right to assemble, without
> > protecting the limbs that carry us to the assembly? Life and limb
> > would seem to qualify as priority items, and their protection a public
> > good, with widespread public support.
>
> > But the Bill of Rights, for now, includes no such entry. In the
> > absence of such a constitutional right, perhaps we need the 'No Label'
> > movement to help us see the Constitution through a lens that is
> > neither blue nor red. Perhaps an uncolored lens would show us more
> > clearly what the Constitution meant to say in this case.
>
> > While waiting for the politics to play out, while waiting to see if
> > the prevailing view of the Constitution is to left or to right, I
> > maintain that inconsistent access to health care is wrong.
>
> > Our modern politics, and the polarization that currently prevails, is
> > inviting us to infer what the Constitution meant to say yesterday.
> > That it is open to interpretation and changes when viewed from left or
> > right seems to
>
> ...
>
> read more »
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